Numbers 14:33-43

33 Your children will be shepherds here for forty years, suffering for your unfaithfulness, until the last of your bodies lies in the wilderness.
34 For forty years—one year for each of the forty days you explored the land—you will suffer for your sins and know what it is like to have me against you.’
35 I, the LORD, have spoken, and I will surely do these things to this whole wicked community, which has banded together against me. They will meet their end in this wilderness; here they will die.”
36 So the men Moses had sent to explore the land, who returned and made the whole community grumble against him by spreading a bad report about it—
37 these men who were responsible for spreading the bad report about the land were struck down and died of a plague before the LORD.
38 Of the men who went to explore the land, only Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh survived.
39 When Moses reported this to all the Israelites, they mourned bitterly.
40 Early the next morning they set out for the highest point in the hill country, saying, “Now we are ready to go up to the land the LORD promised. Surely we have sinned!”
41 But Moses said, “Why are you disobeying the LORD’s command? This will not succeed!
42 Do not go up, because the LORD is not with you. You will be defeated by your enemies,
43 for the Amalekites and the Canaanites will face you there. Because you have turned away from the LORD, he will not be with you and you will fall by the sword.”

Numbers 14:33-43 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO NUMBERS 14

This chapter treats or the murmurings of the children of Israel upon the evil report of the spies, which greatly distressed Moses and Aaron, Nu 14:1-5; and of the endeavours of Joshua and Caleb to quiet the minds of the people with a good account of the land, and of the easy conquest of it, but to no purpose, Nu 14:6-10; and of the Lord's threatening to destroy the people with the pestilence, Nu 14:11,12; and of the intercession of Moses for them, which so far succeeded as to prevent their immediate destruction, Nu 14:13-20; nevertheless they are assured again and again, in the strongest terms, that none of them but Joshua and Caleb should enter into the land, but their carcasses should fall in the wilderness, even all the murmurers of twenty years old and upwards, Nu 14:21-35; and the ten men that brought the evil report of the good land died of a plague immediately, but the other two lived, Nu 14:36-38; and the body of the people that attempted to go up the mountain and enter the land were smitten and discomfited by their enemies, after they had with concern heard what the Lord threatened them with, Nu 14:39-45.

Cross References 21

  • 1. ver 34; S Exodus 16:35; Acts 13:18; Hebrews 3:9
  • 2. S ver 33
  • 3. Numbers 13:25
  • 4. Numbers 23:19
  • 5. S ver 32
  • 6. Numbers 13:4-16
  • 7. ver 2
  • 8. S Numbers 13:32
  • 9. S Numbers 13:32; 1 Corinthians 10:10; Hebrews 3:17
  • 10. Numbers 16:49; Numbers 5:9; Numbers 26:1; Numbers 31:16; Deuteronomy 4:3
  • 11. ver 30; Numbers 13:4-16
  • 12. ver 24; Joshua 14:6
  • 13. ver 28-35
  • 14. S Exodus 33:4
  • 15. ver 45; Numbers 13:17
  • 16. S Exodus 9:27; Deuteronomy 1:41
  • 17. 2 Chronicles 24:20
  • 18. Deuteronomy 1:42
  • 19. Judges 3:13
  • 20. ver 45; Numbers 13:29
  • 21. S Genesis 39:23; Deuteronomy 31:8; Joshua 6:27; Judges 1:19; Judges 6:16; 1 Samuel 3:19; 1 Samuel 18:14; 2 Chronicles 1:1
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